Diablo 3 - The Paragon System - 100 More "Levels"

August 20th, 2012, 23:31

Blizzard unveils the Paragon System - an additional 100 "levels" after the level 60 cap to enhance extended play. The post at Blizzard outlines the issues in detail but for the sake of a quote, here's the basic description:

The new Paragon system coming in patch 1.0.4 is designed to address Magic Find gear-swapping while providing players who’ve reached level 60 with an extended progression system.
Here’s how it works:

After you hit level 60, any further experience you earn from killing monsters will begin to count toward Paragon levels

There are 100 Paragon levels

Every Paragon level will reward you with:

Core stats such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality in amounts similar to what you’d gain from a normal level

3% Magic Find and 3% Gold Find

In addition, a distinctive increasingly-impressive border will surround your character portrait in the in-game party frame to denote your Paragon progression, with a new frame earned after every ten levels. Your Paragon level will also be visible to other players wherever your normal level is shown

We know that a lot of you out there are level 60 — maybe on multiple characters — and this system provides a way to make progress every time you log in to the game.

Originally Posted by Impregnator
Or you could recreate a core element and one of the reasons Diablo 2 was so much more fun and interesting (in my opinion) by including skill trees.

Anyone else think skill trees would make Diablo 3 a lot better or do you all like the new “choice-lite” system of D3 and the soon to be released WoW expansion?

The long-term replayability value of the new system is almost non-existant. I wouldn't necessarily want to go back to Diablo 2 - as that's 12 years old and ancient.

But we definitely need ways to customise characters that can't be immediately replicated or changed. As it is now, there's zero reason to EVER replay the game with the same class - which is incredibly stupid for a game like this.

It's just another example of a profound lack of understanding of Diablo by the new Bliz.

I've come to see them as two different approaches, each with their advantages and disadvantages. In other words, I'd say the D3 system is not an obvious fail, or even obviously inferior. I think whether you like one over the other has most to do with what's more important to you in this kind of game and how much time you expect to invest in it.

In addition, a distinctive increasingly-impressive border will surround your character portrait in the in-game party frame to denote your Paragon progression, with a new frame earned after every ten levels. Your Paragon level will also be visible to other players wherever your normal level is shown

It never ceases to amaze me the shallow 'treadmills' people are willing to sink hours and days of their lives to. And in this case, so you have 'bragging rights' of a super-cool character portrait frame. wtf.

— If I'm right but there is no wife around to acknowledge it, am I still right?

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
But we definitely need ways to customise characters that can't be immediately replicated or changed. As it is now, there's zero reason to EVER replay the game with the same class - which is incredibly stupid for a game like this.

I never got into the whole Diablo 2 thing, but I did experiment with Titan Quest (and D3). I think I would be quite happy not to replay the same classes over and over again. Isn't that why there are classes to begin with - to differentiate between skill sets of characters?

I was perfectly happy with the skill tree system as it existed in D3. I wouldn't want every game to be like that, but I thought it worked really well for the type of game D3 was, and that it resulted in a lot more individual character variation then you see in a traditional skill tree system. As for replay, very few people play every single character class up to level 60, let alone worry about whether it's feasible to have multiple level 60s of the same class.

Originally Posted by fadedc
I was perfectly happy with the skill tree system as it existed in D3. I wouldn't want every game to be like that, but I thought it worked really well for the type of game D3 was, and that it resulted in a lot more individual character variation then you see in a traditional skill tree system. As for replay, very few people play every single character class up to level 60, let alone worry about whether it's feasible to have multiple level 60s of the same class.

What do you mean very few people?

Let's compare with WoW, a game that takes vastly longer time to level cap - and would you also say "very few" get to max?

The Diablo games and the roguelike genre in general is, literally, about replaying. That's why it has randomly generated levels and multiple difficulties with increasingly hard challenges with better rewards.

Diablo and Diablo 2 was very much about the strategy of planning for your build and optimising performance. That's pretty much why they stayed fresh for so long.

I understand that people think Diablo 3 is fine in how it's not a longterm experience - but they should have picked another franchise if they wanted a short-term game.

Originally Posted by TheMadGamer
It never ceases to amaze me the shallow 'treadmills' people are willing to sink hours and days of their lives to. And in this case, so you have 'bragging rights' of a super-cool character portrait frame. wtf.

Well, people sing hours and days of their lives into to stuff like smoking, driking or watching crappy television shows for even worse reasons…

I didn't say that very few people get to max level in D3. I said that very few people get to max level with every character class in the game. And yes, that would be true about WoW as well.

Certainly though, a lot of people don't reach max level in D3. Blizzard has suggested that the people who play Inferno are a minority in the game. I believe that also true in D2 for people who played all the way through to hell.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
What do you mean very few people?

Let's compare with WoW, a game that takes vastly longer time to level cap - and would you also say "very few" get to max?

I was in WoW for 6 years in a mostly casual based guild with about 300 members. The majority of them had multiple max levels - I was in the small minority who only had one. Anecdotal evidence of course … but my own feeling is that there are fare more than a few people with multiple max level characters, at least in WoW.

— Character is centrality, the impossibility of being displaced or overset. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your right, but you seem to have misread my post. I said that very few players have maxed out EVERY character class.

Originally Posted by wolfgrimdark
I was in WoW for 6 years in a mostly casual based guild with about 300 members. The majority of them had multiple max levels - I was in the small minority who only had one. Anecdotal evidence of course … but my own feeling is that there are fare more than a few people with multiple max level characters, at least in WoW.

Originally Posted by Impregnator
Or you could recreate a core element and one of the reasons Diablo 2 was so much more fun and interesting (in my opinion) by including skill trees.

Anyone else think skill trees would make Diablo 3 a lot better or do you all like the new “choice-lite” system of D3 and the soon to be released WoW expansion?

I agree completely that without permanent character build choices, D3 has very limited replayability. Torchlight 2 is getting it right by including permanent choices. Part of being an RPG is giving players FREEDOM to make bad builds and learn and re-roll.

But really, I don't mind D3 being totally boring and the loot being garbage…because I want Torchlight 2 to take the throne of ARPG.

Originally Posted by fadedc
I didn't say that very few people get to max level in D3. I said that very few people get to max level with every character class in the game. And yes, that would be true about WoW as well.

You're right, you did. Sorry.

Not that I understand why that's relevant, as I'm talking about replaying favorite classes with multiple builds. I can assure you that a LOT of people did that in D2.

Certainly though, a lot of people don't reach max level in D3. Blizzard has suggested that the people who play Inferno are a minority in the game. I believe that also true in D2 for people who played all the way through to hell.

Inferno is another matter altogether, and you don't need to play it for max level. But Diablo 3 late-game is pretty bland in many ways, so I wouldn't use it as the standard for how many people reach max level in the genre.

Sure - a lot of people didn't play D2 exhaustively - but then again, a lot of people did.

The primary difference between the D3 design and the D2 design - is that in D3, there's no reason to ever come back and play the same class again.

That's what people did with D2. They maxed out a character and played for a month or two - and then put it aside. Much like they've done in D3.

But in D2 - there was a reason to come back and play your favorite classes again. In D3 - there isn't.

I see your point, but my point was just that most people haven't even gotten to the point of playing each character through and deciding their favorite class, let alone worrying about replaying it over and over. Now that may be just because the game isn't sufficiently fun/entertaining to play quite that much, which is another matter entirely. I enjoy the game, but I certainly have little interest in replaying it that many times.

Other then that, it can be hard to reach a consensus because people have vastly different definitions of what it means to play a game "exhaustively". I put in well over 100 hours in D3. To me that is exhaustive. It's way more then I put in almost any other non MMO (including vanilla D2). I suspect that you've played a similar amount of hours, but for you that's not exhaustive, it's short term. It's going to be hard for people to see eye to eye on it when they have such different expectations.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
You're right, you did. Sorry.

Not that I understand why that's relevant, as I'm talking about replaying favorite classes with multiple builds. I can assure you that a LOT of people did that in D2.

Inferno is another matter altogether, and you don't need to play it for max level. But Diablo 3 late-game is pretty bland in many ways, so I wouldn't use it as the standard for how many people reach max level in the genre.

Sure - a lot of people didn't play D2 exhaustively - but then again, a lot of people did.

The primary difference between the D3 design and the D2 design - is that in D3, there's no reason to ever come back and play the same class again.

That's what people did with D2. They maxed out a character and played for a month or two - and then put it aside. Much like they've done in D3.

But in D2 - there was a reason to come back and play your favorite classes again. In D3 - there isn't.

I have just read that "Paragon Points" are given away only for killing monsters or for surviving so-called "survival-chains", but not for doing quests or for finding Diaries …

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)